Trump’s influence looms large over congressional Republicans

“I think it probably swayed people on the underlying bill,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) told reporters afterward. “I mean, when the president weighs in on something, it moves votes in the U.S. House Republican Conference.”

But their initial sinking of the national security vote is only the latest sign congressional Republicans are falling in line more deeply behind Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, no matter how far his mercurial politics diverge from traditional GOP orthodoxy. Once staunch security hawks, some Republicans now routinely attack the FBI by falsely claiming it spied on the Trump campaign. Once happy warriors against Russia, many now balk at sending money to arm Ukraine. Once strongly for border security and banning abortion, many found reasons to reject a tough immigration compromise and to soften their abortion stances along with Trump statements.

Sometimes Trump is echoing positions that Republicans in Congress already hold or are moving toward. But his ability to shift the political and policy winds is undeniable, hastening trends, setting fresh contours of debate or even helping to sink a bipartisan compromise (such as on immigration reform).

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a Trump critic before he ran for office who has become a loyalist, said Trump’s influence is greater in the House than in the Senate because of the “political incentives.” House members face voters every two years instead of every six like in the Senate.

As the House gears up for a potential vote on Ukraine funding next week, Vance predicted that Trump will intervene. “I’m sure Trump will have influence, and I’m sure that he’ll make his opinion known,” Vance said.

For Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Trump out of office has become the “fourth branch of government.”

Raskin argued that one of the most alarming examples of congressional Republicans taking cues from Trump and quickly falling in line with him was the decision to scrap the launch of an independent and nonpartisan investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. His influence on the conference has only grown since, Raskin said.

Trump’s impact on House Republicans will be on peak display Friday at Mar-a-Lago, where Speaker Johnson will hold a news conference with Trump centering on the former president’s favorite issues: immigration and alleged voting fraud.

It’s unclear whether the speaker will get an explicit endorsement from Trump in his battle to remain atop the House. One of Trump’s closest GOP allies, Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.), is threatening to depose Johnson if he brings Ukraine aid to the floor, something Johnson has pledged to do. And Johnson doesn’t have the same relationship with Trump as did the former House speaker, McCarthy, whom he called “My Kevin.”

McCarthy played down Trump’s influence on legislation during an appearance Tuesday at Georgetown University. Citing Ukraine aid and border security, a student asked McCarthy, “Do you see a single individual’s power to effectively derail bipartisan consensus-building as a threat to the functioning of our legislative branch of government?”

“Well, you would say then Trump has the power of what comes to the floor or not,” McCarthy responded. “It’s the speaker that has the power. And I don’t know who influenced the speaker [on those issues]. Maybe Trump did or not.”

Whether Trump is the decisive factor in every issue is up for debate, and other Republicans also downplay his influence as Democrats portray him as the House’s puppet master.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Trump’s clout legislatively is “way overblown” and “certainly not determinative” of legislative outcomes. “President Trump has a great deal of influence over candidates in a primary,” Johnson qualified.

One thing is clear, however: Trump looms larger than ever over congressional Republicans and 2024 candidates as he seeks a return to the White House.

On the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a far-right bloc of House Republicans was already angered by what it views as abuses of U.S. intelligence agencies’ powers. Before Trump’s statement, right-wing lawmakers may have already tanked the procedural motion to start floor debate on renewing Section 702 and related measures, which allow surveillance of noncitizens abroad. Trump’s social media post, however, didn’t help the measure’s chances.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), for instance, responded to Trump on Wednesday morning with an assurance.

“We are killing FISA,” she said on X.

Trump’s long-awaited statement on abortion, delivered Monday, also clashed with some congressional Republicans and candidates who have endorsed a national ban at a specific number of weeks. Trump has boasted that he appointed the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade but said the issue is now up to the states and declined to back a national abortion ban.

Asked to comment on Trump’s statement, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) shrugged off his previous position as unrealistic.

“I support a 15-week ban, but that’s not going to pass,” Hawley (R-Mo.) said. “Let’s just be realistic. That’s not going to get 60 votes [in the Senate]. Let’s let people decide. Let voters vote.”

In Arizona, Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake — a staunch Trump ally running in one of the most closely watched Senate races — has wholly flipped her abortion stance, reversing her previous support for an 1864 ban revived this week by the state’s Supreme Court. While Lake said in 2022 that the archaic bill should be reinstated, on Tuesday she called on Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), her 2022 opponent, to “come up with an immediate common-sense solution” to the court ruling.

On abortion, long before Trump’s latest statement, the National Republican Senatorial Committee was urging its candidates to oppose a national ban and support certain exceptions, despite some of their past positions. Trump’s statement only served to give them more cover.

“I agree with President Trump that the issue of abortion should be decided at the state level,” Mike Rogers, the NRSC- and Trump-backed candidate for Senate in Michigan, said in a statement. “The people of Michigan spoke in a loud and clear voice in 2022, and I will take no action as their voice in Washington that is at odds with the Michigan Constitution.”

Rogers is a former House member who once supported near-total abortion bans there, but the political winds have shifted since then, especially after Michigan voters enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution two years ago.

Some Republicans bristle at the idea Trump is guiding them. On the border deal, for example, some argue they already disagreed with the substance of the legislation before Trump weighed in against it.

Nonetheless, when Trump railed against the deal, it quickly fell apart in the Senate.

The deal was partly negotiated by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and included new asylum restrictions that were previously viewed as unacceptable to Democrats. Still, Trump bashed it as a “horrible open borders betrayal of America,” and within days, Senate Republicans backed away from the package.

“[Trump] was making a very astute observation that this Senate bill was a terrible bill, but we knew that,” said Rep. Mike Garcia, a Republican who represents a battleground district in California. “We don’t need him to tell us that.”

On Ukraine aid, Trump’s skepticism is well-established — and it has attracted a growing following among House Republicans. He has specifically called on congressional Republicans to block a new aid package for Ukraine unless it comes in the form of a loan.

Johnson is considering the idea as he debates whether to put a foreign aid package on the floor.

Trump has continued to emphasize that Congress should put “America first,” an attitude echoed by many House Republicans who believe the United States should prioritize security of its own borders and have even suggested Ukraine’s war effort is a lost cause. Trump’s influence on Ukraine has been a big obstacle to Johnson’s putting a package on the House floor, and prompted Greene’s threats to topple him.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), during a Fox Business appearance Tuesday, said the United States is “probably not going to really save Ukraine, let’s face it.”

“We’re not writing them off, but are you willing to essentially write off America and America’s border to send $65 billion to Ukraine for which we’re never going to see anything come back from and we’re not going to see a victory for?” Perry said.

Trump’s posture toward Ukraine aid has also permeated congressional primaries, especially the upcoming contests in Indiana. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), the first Ukrainian-born immigrant to serve in the U.S. Congress, faces a well-funded challenger who is accusing her of putting “Ukraine first,” while former Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) is making a comeback bid with a pitch to end Ukraine aid.

“Donald Trump needs backup in Congress to save America,” a narrator says in one pro-Hostettler TV ad, later adding that Hostettler will “fight to … end the billions in foreign aid to corrupt countries like Ukraine.”

Leigh Ann Caldwell contributed to this report